Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
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50 free Cat on a Hot Tin Roof trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof packs a dying patriarch, a fortune up for grabs and a marriage on the brink into one sweltering birthday party. Tennessee Williams wrote it for the stage in 1955, and Hollywood turned it into one of the biggest hits of 1958, with two of the most watchable stars of the decade as Maggie and Brick. This quiz covers both versions. Expect questions on the plot and what each Pollitt wants, on Big Daddy, Big Mama, Gooper and Mae, on the symbols and themes that classes study, and on the film: who was cast, who nearly was, what the censors would not allow and how it fared at the Oscars. Famous lines are described, never quoted. It is written for film fans who know the movie by heart, for students revising the play, and for anyone curious how much of the story has stayed with them. Later questions reach into the original Broadway production, the television versions and the revivals.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which star played Maggie in the 1958 film Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, returning to the set weeks after being widowed?
Elizabeth Taylor
Elizabeth Taylor lost her husband, producer Mike Todd, in a plane crash days into the shoot and was back at work within a month. She later called Maggie a high point of her career.
Q 02Which actor earned his first Oscar nomination playing Brick Pollitt in the 1958 film Cat on a Hot Tin Roof?
Paul Newman
Paul Newman was cast because the director felt the camera could rest on his silent face for minutes at a time. He was not yet a big star, and the Oscar went to David Niven.
Q 03In Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, what was a drunken Brick Pollitt doing when he broke his ankle?
Jumping hurdles
Jumping hurdles at night on his old high-school track was Brick's drunken bid to relive his athletic glory. The 1958 film opens with the stunt, while the play only reports it.
Q 04Tennessee Williams so disliked the 1958 film of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof that he reportedly did what?
Told the queue to leave
Williams is said to have told the queue to leave, warning people lining up that the picture would set the industry back 50 years. Audiences ignored him, and it became one of the biggest hits of 1958.
Q 05Which folk singer played Big Daddy both on Broadway and in the 1958 film of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof?
Burl Ives
Burl Ives is better known to millions as the voice of Sam the Snowman, narrator of the 1964 TV special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Big Daddy was his most notable Broadway role.
Q 06Which illness is Big Daddy really dying of in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof while his family pretends otherwise?
Cancer
Cancer is the truth that everyone except Big Daddy and Big Mama knows from the start. Brick finally blurts it out in anger at the end of the second act.
Q 07Which word for lying does Brick Pollitt use for everything that disgusts him in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof?
Mendacity
Mendacity is Brick's name for the dishonesty he sees in everyone around him, and his stated reason for drinking. Big Daddy answers that Brick's real disgust is with himself.
Q 08The film rights to Cat on a Hot Tin Roof were bought as a vehicle for which star, who then quit Hollywood?
Grace Kelly
Grace Kelly retired from acting at 26 to marry Prince Rainier of Monaco, and the director lined up to guide her, Joshua Logan, lost interest in the project.
Q 09What false claim does Maggie make at the end of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof to secure Brick's inheritance?
She is pregnant
She is pregnant, Maggie announces, and Big Daddy and Big Mama believe her although Gooper and Mae know it is a lie. In the 1958 film she offers the news as her birthday present.
Q 10Cat on a Hot Tin Roof won Tennessee Williams which honor in 1955, his second after A Streetcar Named Desire?
A Pulitzer Prize
A Pulitzer Prize went to the play only after the board's chairman overrode a jury that ranked it the weakest of five finalists. Williams called it his personal favorite among his plays.
Q 11In which US state does the Pollitt family plantation of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof lie, on rich Delta land?
Mississippi
Mississippi was also the birthplace of Tennessee Williams, who was born in the town of Columbus while his grandfather was rector of its Episcopal church.
Q 12Which sport made Brick Pollitt of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof a hero before he turned to drink?
Football
Football bound Brick to his closest friend, and after college the two men set up a professional team of their own. Maggie travelled to its away games while Brick was injured.
Q 13Which friend's death, after a phone call Brick hung up on, haunts him throughout Cat on a Hot Tin Roof?
Skipper
Skipper never appears on stage, yet Maggie and Big Daddy each force Brick to talk about him. Big Daddy argues that Brick's refusal to hear that last call is what destroyed his friend.
Q 21Which profession does Gooper Pollitt follow in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, handy for his designs on the estate?
Lawyer
Lawyer Gooper is the elder son, with five children and a sixth on the way, yet Big Daddy still prefers the brother who ignores him to the one who fawns.
Q 22Which nickname do the Pollitts of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof give Mae, the ambitious wife of Gooper?
Sister Woman
Sister Woman is matched by the family's name for her husband, Brother Man. Mae earns little affection under either title: she listens at doors to report on Brick's drinking.
Q 23Every scene of the stage play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof unfolds in which room, where the injured Brick is stuck?
An upstairs bedroom
Q 14Which crop made Big Daddy Pollitt of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof one of the richest planters in the Delta?
Cotton
Cotton pays for all 28,000 acres the Pollitts own, and the fight over who will run the business once Big Daddy is gone drives the whole plot.
Q 15Which theme of the stage play did the 1958 film of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof remove almost entirely?
Homosexuality
Homosexuality was off limits under Hollywood's Hays Code, so Brick's feelings for his dead friend were recast as hero-worship. The change left Tennessee Williams unhappy with the screenplay.
Q 16Which film star played Maggie in the 2013 Broadway revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, staged at her request?
Scarlett Johansson
Scarlett Johansson asked for the production after winning a Tony for A View from the Bridge. She first considered The Glass Menagerie, until her Brick, Benjamin Walker, suggested Maggie suited her better.
Q 17Which actor played Big Daddy in Broadway's 2008 all-Black revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and then in London?
James Earl Jones
James Earl Jones had waited since 1995, when a staging planned around him found no Broadway house willing to take it. The production finally arrived 13 years later and recouped its costs within 12 weeks.
Q 18The whole action of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof plays out over what span of time, with no gaps between acts?
A single evening
A single evening is all it takes: each act begins at the moment the one before it ends, so stage time and real time match. The occasion is Big Daddy's 65th birthday party.
Q 19In Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Brick Pollitt keeps drinking until he feels what, his signal of oblivion?
A click
A click is Brick's word for the moment the alcohol switches off his thoughts and brings him peace. Until it comes he cannot stop, which is why he keeps hobbling back for another glass.
Q 20Which harmless diagnosis is Big Daddy falsely given after his medical tests in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof?
A spastic colon
A spastic colon is the comforting story, and Big Daddy greets it as a new lease on life after three years of fearing the worst. Only he and Big Mama believe it.
An upstairs bedroom, shared uneasily by Brick and Maggie, holds all three acts because his broken ankle keeps him from the party below. The family has to come up to him.
Q 24What does Maggie lock away in the final moments of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof to bargain with Brick?
His liquor
His liquor goes under lock and key, to be handed back only when Brick has helped turn her announcement into the truth. The curtain falls as she switches off the light.
Q 25Which prop is taken from Brick several times in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof to make him answer?
A crutch
A crutch props Brick up after his injury, and he drops it or has it snatched away at least five times in the first two acts. Maggie and Big Daddy each hold it back to force an answer from him.
Q 26In the 1958 film Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, where do Brick and Big Daddy finally reconcile among stored antiques?
The cellar
The cellar scene was added for the screen, since the play stays in one room throughout. It is crammed with treasures Big Mama bought on a European tour, beside a giant cutout of Brick in his playing days.
Q 27In the 1958 film Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, what is all that Big Daddy's wandering father left him?
An old suitcase
An old suitcase, worn out by a hobo's life, is Big Daddy's proof that his father gave him nothing. Brick replies that the old man also left him love, which Big Daddy never gave his own sons.
Q 28Which Broadway director persuaded Tennessee Williams to rewrite the third act of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof?
Elia Kazan
Elia Kazan wanted Big Daddy back on stage, a more sympathetic Maggie and a change of heart in Brick. Williams complied, then published both endings together with a note defending his own.
Q 29Which actress created Maggie in Broadway's original Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, earning its cast's only Tony nomination?
Barbara Bel Geddes
Barbara Bel Geddes became a household name decades later as Miss Ellie Ewing, matriarch of the television saga Dallas.
Q 30Which actor created Brick in Broadway's original Cat on a Hot Tin Roof but turned down the 1958 film?
Ben Gazzara
Ben Gazzara broke through in the part, with a young Cliff Robertson as his understudy. He reached cinema audiences soon afterwards as the soldier on trial in Anatomy of a Murder.